‘So totally feudal.’
Lily nodded. ‘One day it must change. But for now, with the estate large and prosperous enough to employ all who need it — and train its blacksmiths and thatchers and other trades as well — Shillings remains an island of old England.’
A gentleman with grey walrus whiskers approached, either to ask Lily to dance or try to persuade her to play bridge. Lily stood before he could reach their table. ‘I think I will retire early. I suggest you do, as well. Now Violette won’t interrupt us I think it is time to plan our campaign in more detail.’
‘You make it sound like a battle!’
‘Isn’t it?’ replied Lily quietly. ‘Just a different battleground with other sacrifices and, hopefully, far more gained. Will you walk up with me?’ She extended her arm.
Strange to walk arm in arm again, but as two women, not husband and wife. She could not even feel a hint that Nigel was beside her. This was Lily. Miss Lily, who would be teaching her once more.
The night air was velvet, the ship’s engines almost the heartbeat of the sea. For a minute only, Sophie wished they could sail on forever.
She did not want to ‘acquire’ His Majesty King Edward VIII, formerly her friend David. She did not even want to meet with him. But to see Shillings again, to eat Mrs Goodenough’s cherry cake as autumn leaves let the wind carry them for minutes sometimes, before letting them touch the ground, to see a storm of poplar leaves in a gale like a whirling golden snowstorm, to smell apple-wood fires . . .
To pretend, just a little, that she was the innocent who had arrived in 1913 before humanity knew how much horror it was capable of, but this time to be with Daniel, no doubt conveniently placed in the bedroom next to hers, to be there with her children and with Lily.
I am so rich, she thought. I can spare a little of myself for James’s plans. I have been given so very much love . . .
Her stateroom door opened. She saw Daniel’s silhouette before he tactfully vanished. Lily kissed her cheek again before Sophie went inside.
Chapter 21
A train is its own world. It is a shock, sometimes, when it stops, to find yourself in another that stays quite still. In a train at least you know that whatever happens around you, you will soon be moving on.
Miss Lily, 1910
BERLIN TO DOVER, OCTOBER 1936
There was a train, smooth enough for Anna to read her braille. Tante Liesl had packed three of her books, despite their bulk, so that the journey wasn’t boring, especially as Tante Liesl described the scenery outside, the deer up on the mountain side, and once a wildschwein. The train had a dining car, where Tante Liesl had to guide her to the table. But once there all was easy once again, the plates, the cutlery, even the salt and pepper in the right places.
The first course was soup. She tasted it and made a face.
‘You don’t like it? I think they call it mulligatawny. An English soup.’
‘It is too spicy. Is all English food like this?’ asked Anna, slightly alarmed.
‘No.’ Tante Liesl seemed amused. Tante Liesl had been to England several times, and to the south of France too on holiday with Mutti before Anna was born.
The waiter took her uneaten soup. Another plate was put in front of her. The waiter — the steps sounded like those of a man — did not tell her what it was, which pleased her, for he must not have realised she was blind. Few did, these days, for the school had taught her how to look at eye height to the person speaking to her, or seem to watch the direction in which she was walking, and Tante Liesl and Mutti had helped her too.
She found her knife and fork at twelve o’clock, and used them tentatively on her plate. Tante Liesl did not tell her what it was either, which meant it was something she could eat neatly without knowing exactly what it was.
Ah, she thought, cutting into a small slice, feeling its texture even through the metal of the cutlery. Fish. She tried a small portion. A bland fish, with a sauce a little like mayonnaise, but with more lemon and another faint flavour too.
‘I think there is dill in this sauce,’ said Tante Liesl. ‘Good?’
‘Very good,’ said Anna, relieved. It would have been hard to live in England and just eat bread and butter — she knew English people ate bread and butter because in the English textbook at school there had been an exercise in which little Harold had come down to breakfast and eaten bread and butter and an egg and then played with a ball and a dog.
She actually was fond of bread and butter, especially fresh rolls at breakfast and the sweet ones with sultanas too, but it was good to know that she would enjoy English fish at least.
She finished the fish, eating slowly as she always did because once a piece dropped from her fork it was hard to find, and Mutti and Tante Liesl said food could make stains on her clothes. She only had one change of clothes with her, for their main luggage was in the van, so she was extra careful now.
Another plate, a bigger one. She picked up the outside knife and fork. Roast beef, which she had not had often — mostly there had been stews at school, and roast pork at home. But it was quite good, the potatoes crisp though the gravy was salty. There were peas too, which were a problem, so she worked at them slowly, making sure they were secured by a piece of potato or meat, so she had only just finished when the waiter brought strawberries and ice cream.
The strawberries were not as delicious as the ones Mutti and Tante Liesl picked in summer in the forest, while Anna sat on a blanket listening to the birds and opening her mouth, birdlike, for them to feed her the wild fruit. Summer strawberries were like eating sunlight. But the ice cream was wonderful.
‘Could I have some more?’ she asked hopefully.
Tante Liesl laughed. Her laugh seemed to come more easily the further the train went. ‘You can finish mine.’
Coffee after that for Tante Liesl and linden tea for her, and chocolates that were so special she almost slipped some in her pocket, but they might melt and make a mess. And, for once, Tante Liesl did not say ‘I think you have had enough’, but let her eat every one, or five of them at least, each with a different filling. Anna tried to guess what they might be — strawberry or cherry and, yes, that was definitely mint, and maybe orange . . .
Tante Liesl had to help her up onto the bed after a visit to the lavatory and a wash. It was strange not to change into a nightdress, but their passports might be checked in the middle of the night.
They were. But Tante Liesl handed Anna’s over with her own, and the other passengers down the corridor handed theirs over too, and the train was soon moving again . . .
Another wash with a cloth only, and then she changed into her other dress there in the lavatory, handing yesterday’s clothes to Tante Liesl then holding her hand while they went to the restaurant car, for rolls and coffee, which she drank weak, in fact mostly milk. She could smell eggs too.
‘No eggs,’ said Tante Liesl. ‘We are going on a boat. Then we will be in England and get on another train and then your mutti will be there and we will go to the prinzessin.’
‘Do you think Tante Hanne will let me try on her tiara again?’ That had been a most special day, her birthday, when the prinzessin had said she looked so pretty she must wear a tiara for the day, in the special hairstyle her mother had created. Her dress had been a fabric called organza and there had been cream cakes and the prinzessin had played the piano and exclaimed with delight when she found that Anna could play too and they had played ‘Für Elise’ together.
The tiara had actually not been comfortable at all, and the hairstyle needed to hold it was far too tight. But it had still been exciting.
‘Perhaps,’ said Tante Liesl, and Anna could tell she was excited too.
The train stopped with much noise and steam and yells. Tante Liesl made her wait till most of the passengers had left so they could walk without being bumped. The porter would see to their luggage.
On the boat they had a cabin down some steep narrow stairs. A room to themselves was good, be
cause she vomited up the rolls and the milk coffee. Finally it was all gone, and she lay with a wet washcloth on her forehead and tried to sleep. And she did sleep, for suddenly the boat rocked only gently and seagulls yelled and she no longer felt nauseated.
Soon she would see Mutti. Soon there would be no more travelling, just a long holiday with Mutti and then a new school, a most excellent school Mutti said, for girls just like her, where she would learn to play the piano just like at the school in Berlin, and practise typing as well as write by hand and a machine that wrote for you in braille too, which would be exciting for she had not learned that at her old school.
She frowned . . . she had written to Hilde and Gertrude and the others, but there had been no reply. Perhaps they did not have kind aunts who would read letters out for them. Some families were not as kind as hers; nor did the teachers read letters from home to the students, nor even write them for them.
‘Papers, please.’ The voice was English.
‘Here they are,’ said Tante Liesl carefully in English.
A pause. ‘German. This ain’t a proper visa. You Germans can’t keep trying to sneak in here with all kinds of papers.’
‘We are not sneaking!’ said Tante Liesl stiffly. ‘These are papers from the German Embassy. See, there is the seal!’
‘Just looks like a squiggle to me. Hey, George, got another pair of reffos trying it on.’
A hand, rough, on her shoulder.
‘Stop it! Can’t you see that she is blind! Ring the embassy!’ demanded Tante Liesl. ‘They will tell you that we are expected!’
‘Ring them yourself, lady.’
‘I will. I will ring the prinzessin too. She will stop all this nonsense! Show me the telephone.’
‘Well, you’ll have to do that from Germany, won’t you? Because this ferry’s leaving to go back across the Channel and you’re going to be on it.’
‘But I tell you —’ Tante Liesl broke off, and made a cry of pain. ‘Let us go! I tell you the papers are in order! We are expected at the embassy! Call the prinzessin.’
‘A princess? Hey, George, we got another Princess Anastasia here.’
‘I am not Russian. My sister is lady’s maid to the Prinzessin von Arnenberg and this is her daughter.’
‘And I don’t give tuppence for a Kraut princess. Now we can do this the easy way or do it the hard way.’
Tante Liesl gave another exclamation. Anna did not move but she was dragged anyway, could hear Tante Liesl’s shoes on the platform being dragged too, heard people whispering, shouting what might be abuse, heard even laughter . . .
Then they were on hard seats, not in their cabin. And the ship began to move and when it eventually docked more men saw them to the train, not to the sleeper they had been in nor the restaurant car, but more hard seats, with people sobbing, some loud, some soft, some whimpering as if they hoped no one would hear.
Tante Liesl did not cry. She held Anna’s hand hard and said, ‘We will sort this out. Do not worry, Anna. Do not worry.’
Anna was too tired, too stiff, too hungry to worry. Once, just once, they allowed her to go to the lavatory with Tante Liesl, and they drank some water there, but not much, as they then might not be allowed to go to the lavatory again.
And then they showed the papers once again to people with German voices this time. The train stopped, started and stopped again. And finally they were half pushed to the door and Tante Liesl helped her out. Anna could smell the smoke and soot and hear the familiar tones of Herr Grün the stationmaster, and knew they were once again back home, which should no longer be their home.
And then they walked to a cold house.
Anna wondered where their baggage had gone to. But she was too tired to ask. Then Tante Liesl made her bed up and, even though it was cold, she slept.
Chapter 22
I saw women in the war: women in trousers and boots lifting shattered men into ambulances; women who formed their own brigades, some formal, some not, to rescue or care for the wounded, to feed the armies and to care for refugees. I thought: the skills I taught are no longer needed. Women will stride as equals when this war is over.
But we did not.
Miss Lily, 1920
OCTOBER 1936
‘Your stride is often too long these days,’ said Green, watching Sophie critically in her stateroom. ‘You no longer take the small steps of a lady.’
They are . . . preparing me, thought Sophie. Remaking me into a lovely lady.
She did not want to be remade. But the Great War had remade them all, and never in ways they would have chosen. She could tolerate this.
Outside Daniel walked around the decks, first one and then another, working his way down the ship and then up; it was the only replacement he could find for the long walks in the bush that soothed his mind and soul. Sophie was worried for him, this dear man who had suffered so much, not just on his own account, but because he loved his fellow man so much and could not save them, only make things — sometimes — somewhat better.
Now he was returning to the world of war, and for her sake. She had seen him grow more . . . what was the word? Tense? Anguished? Did he wish to retreat once more into being John? But he would not do that. He would remain Daniel, for her, for Rose, for Danny.
At least he could forget for a while, like this morning when he played quoits with them after Miss Letitia’s lessons — lessons that would soon provide the children familiar normality amidst the attention they would inevitably attract.
‘Sophie?’ Miss Lily had evidently said something Sophie had missed. Miss Lily, thought Sophie. How easy it was to see her again as the teacher she had once been . . .
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I do not think the length of stride matters. Emily writes that Wallis Simpson also walks with long steps, almost like a man’s. She is a woman who likes to be in control.’
Green grinned. ‘La belle Simpson has not run Higgs Industries for over fifteen years.’
Sophie shook her head. ‘We are talking as if David simply loves a collection of her qualities. What if he truly loves her?’
‘But, my dear, that is the point,’ said Lily gently. ‘David doesn’t know the true Wallis Simpson. Her letters make it clear she neither likes nor respects him, much less loves him. She plays a carefully constructed role to be who he wants. You will simply do the same, but far better.’
‘Now for your figure,’ said Green.
‘What’s wrong with my figure?’
‘There is too much of it,’ said Green smoothly.
Sophie almost said Daniel had no complaints. ‘David prefers boyish figures? Darlings, there is no way my figure would look boyish, even if I banted from here to Southampton.’
‘But you have the strong legs and arms of a horsewoman. The highest possible heels will help your legs look fashionably fragile . . .’
‘As long as I don’t break my ankle,’ muttered Sophie.
‘And we will have the lightest of silk to waft over your shoulders. As for the rest . . .’ Green held out a small package.
Sophie opened it and stared. ‘A corset?’
‘I designed it myself. It will flatten your hips and stomach without pinching in your waist. It will flatten your breasts too.’
‘I swore ten years ago I’d never wear a corset again. Ah, well. Presumably you have the perfect wardrobe for me too? Dull suits like Mrs Simpson wears?’ James had left them copious notes not just on Mrs Simpson, but also the current gossip of fashionable London.
‘Certainly not,’ said Lily. ‘You are not Mrs Simpson. That is the whole point. No tweed, no flannel. Despite His Majesty’s lavish gifts, Mrs Simpson has never been able to afford your couturiers — nor would they have taken her on as a client. You will wear silks, velvets, brocades, severely cut to fit your figure . . .’
‘Or the one you have created for me,’ muttered Sophie, glancing at the corset.
‘And do remember not to mutter,’ said Lily serenely. ‘Your cloth
es will be ornamented, as Mrs Simpson’s are not — no lace, too feminine. Jet, pearls, gold embroidery, tiny diamonds beaded along your neckline. You will be the aristocrat Mrs Simpson cannot be, and beautiful, which she is not.’
‘But most importantly you must be witty. Clever,’ said Green. ‘That’s what everyone says is her main attraction, not just for His Majesty.’
‘Luckily that will not be a problem for you. But use it,’ said Lily. She smiled. ‘Back in your debutante days I had to try to convince you to hide your intelligence, except from men like James. Now it is fashionable, even in women.’
‘It’s that Mr Noël Coward, and his plays,’ said Green. ‘He wrote witty women and society fell in love with them. Now, let’s see how the corset looks on you.’
Sophie stared at the garment. She had expected flesh colours, or at least pale pink. This was black, with red ribbons. ‘Why on earth is it that colour? No one is going to see it except us.’
She found Lily and Green simply looking at her, waiting for the penny to drop.
‘You said that David was impotent,’ she said to Lily slowly. ‘You promised Daniel I would not have to sleep with him.’
‘I said that he was mostly impotent,’ said Lily carefully. ‘I made no promises to Daniel. In fact I most carefully used the word “probably” when I spoke to him about it.’
‘But Daniel believes —’
‘What he wants to believe,’ said Lily.
As she had, Sophie realised. But they were two-thirds of the way to England now. And the reasons for her doing this were still valid. Nor had Lily lied to her.
Lily was extremely skilled in choosing how much of the truth to tell.
‘Then you do expect me to sleep with David?’
Lilies, Lies and Love Page 11
